


Broken Pieces of Yesterday

by l0vetakesnoprisoners



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M, Gen, Lexie and Mark are alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 06:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8317543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/l0vetakesnoprisoners/pseuds/l0vetakesnoprisoners
Summary: When Lexie's patient's family wants to go against their healthcare directive, it brings back memories of that horrible day when Gary Clark came to Seattle Grace Mercy West.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is set sometime in season 11/12. It's mainly cannon compliant, except that both Lexie and Mark both survived the plane crash. Oh yeah, they're married too. 
> 
> I hope nothing is too OOC (I think Amelia is a little), as this is the first time I've tried to write anything Grey's Anatomy. But please let me know if it is, I'd like to get better at writing this fandom.
> 
> Thanks!

“Miss Williams, I’m afraid the neurological exams and scans that we’ve done on your sister have shown that there is minimal brain activity.” Lexie paused, allowing the blonde woman to properly process the information. Miss Williams, Janet as her sister once called her, looked toward her sister who was lying still in the hospital bed only a foot or so away. “Minimal brain activity?” she asked, tears forming in her eyes. “So when she wakes up, how much care will she need?” 

“I’m so sorry, but your sister is in an irreversible coma. She won’t be able to wake up.”  
Her head snapped back to Lexie and Edwards. “What? You said she had brain activity.” 

“There appears to be some activity, yes,” Edwards informed her, “but--”  
“So she can wake up! If there’s brain activity, there has to be hope, right?”  
Lexie sighed, absolutely hating to have to tell the other woman this. “I’m sorry, but there isn’t. When we stop the ventilator, Claire will stop breathing and her heart will stop beating.” 

Janet blinked hard. “What do you mean, when you stop the ventilator? Why would you do that?”  
“It’s in the healthcare directive that Claire signed,” Edwards gently reminded her of her sister’s wishes. “She doesn’t want any extraordinary measures. That unfortunately means the ventilator.”

She shook her head angrily. “No,” she cried. “No, no, no. We came here so you could fix her.” She pointed at Lexie angrily. “You said you were going to remove the tumor and she would be fine!”  
“Miss Williams, I’m sorry, but we knew going in that the tumor was going to be difficult to remove—”  
Her right hand balled into a fist and she slammed it against her left hand with each word as she cut Lexie off. “No! Everyone recommended you! Said you were the best! And you promised! You promised me you’d fix my sister and you turned her into a vegetable! Now you want to kill her?” Lexie shot a look at Edwards who appeared just as helpless as she felt. 

“I-I-I didn’t promise that, Miss Williams,” Lexie replied, flustered. “I said I would do my best –and I did—but I couldn’t have predicted—and I’m sorry, but--”  
“I don’t wanna hear about how sorry you are!” Janet Williams stood from her seat abruptly, knocking the chair into the wall. Both Lexie and Edwards flinched. “I don’t care if you’re sorry! This is your fault; you did this to my sister! I told her not to have this damn surgery, but you just had to convince her!” 

Lexie sputtered, eyes wide as she tried to say something to calm and comfort Miss Williams, but nothing would come to mind. Different words with similar meaning echoed distantly in her head, getting louder the longer she attempted to grab at words. Luckily, Edwards spoke up. “Miss Williams,” she spoke softly, “you know your sister wanted the surgery, even knowing the risks. Dr. Grey-Sloan did everything that she could, but—“  
“But nothing! If you did the best that you could, my sister would be fine right now!”

“I’m sorry,” Lexie choked out, still staring wide eyed. The image of Gary Clark yelling at her planted itself in her mind, the man’s face merging with the woman’s in front of her. “I’m so sorry.”  
“Get out!” Miss Williams shouted and batted them away. “Get out of here! I’m not letting you kill my sister!” Edwards walked out smoothly behind Lexie as the older doctor tripped over her own feet while backing away. Miss Williams forcefully pushed the door closed, glaring at the pair as she did. “What are we gonna do?” Edwards looked to Lexie for guidance. After all, she was the attending. 

Lexie couldn’t form an answer as her breathing quickened. Her mind raced back to the last time she was in this exact situation and what happened because of her actions. Her chest tightened as the memory replayed itself. Bang! She flinched at the imaginary gunshot only she could hear. Lexie fumbled for words before spinning around and sprinting in the opposite direction, leaving a confused Edwards staring after her.

\--

Lexie barged into Amelia’s office, closing the door quickly behind her. “I can’t do it,” she breathed, leaning back with her hand still gripping the handle hard. “I can’t. I can’t.”  
Amelia arched an eyebrow, her eyes showing both confusion and concern for her younger friend. “Can’t what?” 

Lexie bit her lip, bringing her hands in front of her to fidget. “Claire Williams is brain dead.”  
Amelia looked at her expectantly, waiting for a follow up statement or explanation. When she offered none, Amelia leaned forward in her seat and rested her elbows on the desk in front of her. “And?” 

“And her healthcare directive--,” Lexie began pacing, still fidgeting with her hands, “—the directive that she wrote up and signed—clearly states no extraordinary measures.”  
“Okay,” Amelia began slowly, still not understanding Lexie’s reaction. As a doctor, this was not the first time that Lexie had to discontinue care, and it most likely wouldn’t be the last. “Did you inform the family?” 

“I did.” She closed her eyes, shaking her head. “I—I did, but her, her sister doesn’t want us to turn of the ventilator.”  
Amelia sighed, finally feeling like she understood where Lexie was coming from. This decision was a difficult one to make, and as tough as it was going against the family, they legally had to respect the patient’s decision. “I know it’s hard, Lex, but we have to do what the patient wanted. We can’t go against her wishes just because her sister isn’t ready to let her go.” 

Lexie finally stopped moving, looking at Amelia with just a hint of desperation in her eyes. “But—but she’s angry. She’s so angry.”  
“You know as much as I do that grief can translate into anger. You’re Claire Williams’s doctor. You’re supposed to treat her, not her sister.” The younger neurosurgeon swallowed a lump in her throat, her eyes wide as she watched her boss speak. “Now go take care of your patient.” Lexie nodded reluctantly, turning and leaving the same way that she came.

\--

She planned to do just what Amelia told her to. She walked the entire way back to Claire Williams’s room mustering up the courage to go in and tell Janet that they had no choice in the matter; Claire made her own decisions. She’d just began believing it herself when she turned down the hallway, but stopped short of the room. Janet had pulled the chair up to her sister’s bedside. Her head was bowed down so far that her forehead was resting on her sister’s limp arm, her hand squeezing Claire’s as tears rolled down her red face. 

Lexie stood frozen, a lump of fear forming in her throat. Like any other doctor, she hated giving a patient’s family bad news, but Miss Williams’s reaction made her flash back to that hallway all those years ago. She remembered every ounce of fear and panic she’d felt as Mr. Clark pointed his gun at her and called her a murderer. “You’re back,” Edwards called as she walked toward Lexie. “Are we going back in there? Should I call security?” Lexie opened her mouth to speak but instead paused, scrutinizing the resident before her. Stephanie was smart and capable, so much like she was. She briefly considered sending Edwards in there by herself to turn off the machine, but a wave of guilt instantly hit her. How could she even think about doing that to Edwards? The fact that she even considered it made her sick to her stomach.  
Lexie looked back at the Williams sisters. “No,” she told Edwards firmly. 

“No?” Edwards echoed, confusion coloring the simple word.  
“No. We’re not going in there. We’re not turning off the machine. No.” 

“We’re not?”  
“No,” Lexie repeated, shaking her head. Before Edwards could say anything else, Lexie walked away, again leaving Edwards to stare after her in confusion.

\--- 

“Okay,” Mark answered Callie with a smile. “I’ll have Lexie pick out Sofia’s tutu.”  
“You better. Last time I asked you to do it, you got the wrong blue,” the Latina teased as she walked to the elevators. 

“I’ve learned from my mistakes!” he called back, laughing as he opened the door to his office. His smile immediately faded when he heard quick breaths coming from inside the room. “Hello?” He glanced around, growing more concerned when he didn’t instantly see the source of the noise that sounded increasingly familiar. “Lexie?” He walked into the room. “Is that you—oh, Lex.” He spotted his wife on the floor, hiding behind the other side of his desk. He dropped to the floor, taking her hands in his, but she didn’t make eye contact with him. “Lexie, what happened?” His words only made her begin to cry, taking big heaving breaths as tears rolled down her face. Her let go of her hands to grip her tight in a hug while she cried, pressing kisses to her forehead and smoothing her hair how he knew that she liked. “Lex.” She didn’t answer. “Lexie.” He paused again, still not getting a response from her. “I need to know what happened.”  
“She—she wants me t-to unplug her! I—I have to! I have to do it!” 

“Who?” he asked gently, still holding her tightly.  
“Amelia!” 

“Amelia wants you to unplug her?” He cocked his head to the side, even more confused than when he first entered the room.  
“Not her! The patient!” 

“Oh! Amelia wants you to unplug her patient?”  
“Not her patient,” Lexie cried, still hyperventilating. “MY patient. It’s my fault!” 

“Shh, Lex, it’s okay. It’s okay,” Mark soothed, confused as to why this patient was having such a bad impact on her. “I’m sure you did everything you could. It’s not your fault.”  
“N-no I can’t do it. I can’t. Her sister d-doesn’t...” she trailed off, squeezing her eyes shut and focusing on calming herself down.

“Amelia wants you to discontinue care against her sister’s wishes?”  
“No! I mean, yeah.” She took a final shuttering breath that appeared to even out her breathing. “But it’s in the directive. Her sister is angry.” Her watery brown eyes finally meet her husband’s. She whispers, “she’s so angry.” 

Mark gasped softly, finally realizing what was turning Lexie into a wreck. “Lex,” he said her name softly. “We can have someone else do it.”  
“No!” she immediately exclaimed. “It’s my fault! I have to!” 

He loosened his grip on her just enough that she could move out of it if she wanted to. “It’s all right, Lex. Someone else can do it.”  
“I can’t do that to someone,” she whispered and was once again thrown back into the memory of Gary Clark. She remembered the desperate rage on his face as he shouted at her that she told him his wife was fine. She remembered the sinking feeling she felt having to tell him that his wife was brain dead. Above all, she remembered the overwhelming responsibility and guilt that rested in her gut for days after telling him, and the different kind that stayed for months after the shooting. It gnawed at her again, just like every time she thought about the shooting. 

“Lexie, that’s not gonna happen again.”  
“You don’t know that!” she yelled, moving out of his arms. “No one thought it would happen last time either!” 

“Lexie, whoever this is, is not Gary Clark,” he said firmly. “They aren’t going to come back here with a gun hellbent on revenge that doesn’t exist.”  
“But what if she does? You didn’t see her, Mark. She was so angry! She—her face, her voice, her words, everything—was just like Mr. Clark. She is so angry. At me.” Running a hand through her hair, Lexie suddenly stood, taking a few steps back. Her hands were moving wildly as she spoke. “She’s so angry at me. Again. This is my fault.”

Mark stood slowly, approaching his wife like a wild animal. “It’s not your fault,” he told her calmly, not even knowing himself if he was referring to this patient or the shooting.  
“It is! I told him the surgery went fine and then his wife died! I turned off the machine! It’s my fault! It was my fault then and it’s my fault now. It’s always—I’m responsible.”  
Standing only a few inches in front of her now, Mark saw the sadness and guilt in the tiny brunette’s eyes. He knew that she had struggled with guilt over the shooting, but he’d thought she’d gotten past that. “Lexie, it was not your fault. You did not force Gary Clark to buy a gun and you certainly didn’t force him to come here and do what he did.”  
“But-!” she tried to interject, but he wasn’t having any of it. “But nothing. You did your job. The surgery went fine, so you told him it did. You didn’t know that she was going to stroke. You didn’t enjoy turning off the machines. You did everything that you could. He snapped. He went to buy a gun. He made the decision to shoot people. You didn’t do any of that for him.” He paused, seeing his wife finally begin to relax. “Just like you can’t do anything else for this patient. Because you did everything you could, Lex. I don’t even know the case and I’m absolutely sure that you tried everything you could to save this woman because you are a damn good doctor.” He walked to her, leaning his forehead against hers.

“I couldn’t take it, Mark,” she admitted quietly. “After the shooting and the plane crash and Derek dying, I wouldn’t make it if something else happened. I couldn’t.”  
He kissed her hard, pulling her close once again. “I know. And I can’t lose you. That’s how I know that this is going to be okay. It is going to be okay, Lex. She’s not Gary Clark. It might be hard, but she’ll see it’s what her sister wanted. Just give her some time to process it. She’ll realize it’s not your fault.”  
Lexie bit her lip, nodding. “Okay,” she said confidently. “I can do this.”


End file.
